March 26–April 2, 1998

music

South By So What?

The many reasons why SXSW still packs 'em in.

by Margit Detweiler

Nick Lowe seemed a bit clueless.

"I know you're probably wondering what this old English geezer is doing kicking off an American original," said Lowe at this year's South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) in Austin, TX. "I don't know myself. I'm not really convention material."

So instead of giving a lengthy keynote speech ("What's a keynote speech?") the legendary rocker kicked off SXSW with a few words and a few songs.

Frankly, at 10:30 in the morning, "Peace, Love and Understanding" proved far more appealing than a diatribe on the ills of the music biz.

At first, I wondered what I was doing down South, too, my fourth journey to the land of twangy guitars, armadillos and breakfast burritos.

When I scanned the list of bands playing this year's SXSW, nothing really lunged out. Except that there were seven, count 'em, seven bands from Philadelphia playing the highly competitive festival: The Delta 72, Rolling Hayseeds, The Friggs, Marah, Bardo Pond, Josh Wink and a female DJ I'd never heard of named Steph Pockets. And you could make the count eight if you included a band named Experiment (who call themselves Philadelphia's finest band even though they're a bunch of Main Liners, and who appeared on a last-minute bill at the club Maggie Mae's).

Why leave town?

But the lure to SXSW is all-powerful. A place that, this year, boasted 845 showcases and a town of hungry music lovers to pack 'em full. It's a great place to recharge your passion for music and clubhopping: the bouncers are friendly, parking is relatively easy, and it's 70 degrees in March.

The slogan for the SXSW staff T-shirts this year was the sci-fi motto "Resistance is Futile," which seemed appropriate. So in my own Borg ship, a rented Toyota Corolla, I frontiered once again. 'Cause at SXSW there's always new terrain.

Here are some of the high plains and low from a well-spent weekend of music and mayhem.

That Keynote Speech: Lowe wasn't about to tackle the music industry. "Sounding off about the music biz? That's a phase I went through a long time ago when I thought there was too much Supertramp on the radio." The songs he played instead included a few from his latest Upstart/Rounder release, Dig My Mood, a light, blue and jazzy departure for the onetime rootsy punk rocker.

After his set, Lowe waved his hand and announced, "I declare the bars open."

Fashion Statement #1: The SXSW goodie bag designed by South Park's Trey Parker, featuring none other than the hot lava lover himself—Chef.

Sunset on the Border: The show of SXSW. One of two early evening parties held in the backyard shack at Mexican restaurant Las Manitas, this round-robin of Tex Mex luminaries offered enough talent, heart and refried beans to satiate an army of jaded rock critics. Sitting on stools and wielding acoustic guitars, Rosie Flores, Joe Ely, Doug Sahm and Rick Treviño played an hour and a half of music in both Spanish and English.

		The slogan for the SXSW staff T-shirts this year was the sci-fi motto "Resistance Is Futile."

Wearing orange-tinted glasses and iridescent suit, Texas Tornado Sahm played the chatty emcee. "We're gonna play some 'psychedillia' for you," he drawled. Sahm got the crowd clapping to his "St. Louis Polka C" and doubling over with laughter during a weed-inspired Sir Douglas Quintet rarity: "The truth is in the golden staircase, locked at the bottom." Huh? Flores brought herself to tears (unless it was allergies) with a rousing Tejano ballad, backed by fiddle player Tammy Rogers. Ely, the Bruce Springsteen of Texas, was inspired by an eatery, "Nacho Mama," to write his rockin' song—also read as, "I'm Not Yo' Mama."

Crystal-voiced Nashville star Treviño brought his father out of the audience to harmonize with him on the hooting "Margarita" and introduced an entire polyester-blue-suit-wearing Mexican mariachi band, Campanas de America, to accompany him on standards "Mi Ranchito" and "El Ausente." Then the entire crew sang "Volver, Volver."

"I wanted to do a showcase with these folks, because Tex Mex was notably absent from this year's SXSW lineup," said Treviño manager and former Ely manager Dan Goodman.

		Sean Lennon signs autographs at Stubb's. Photo: Hugh Choi

Coast to Coast Distortion: Unfortunately juxtaposed on my itinerary with the hoedown of hombres at Las Manitas, Sonic Youth's latest foray into bleak, artsy distortion shook me out of my Texas bliss into a New York state of pain. On 10 new songs, Kim Gordon's repetitive drone over Lee Ranaldo's discordant guitar and Thurston Moore's noodling seemed sooo tired. But let's wait until their May release on Geffen, A Thousand Leaves, before we yawn. A favorite from the other side of the country, San Diego's Imperial Teen was another disappointment. With their Archies-like melodies, ba-ba-ba backups and shocks of noisy guitar, they seemed derivative of the Pixies, the Velvet Underground and even themselves. They played songs from 1997's debut Seasick and tunes from their forthcoming album.

Who Killed Bobby Fuller? "Hell, if we knew, we wouldn't be here," said Randy Fuller, brother of the murdered Texas rocker Bobby Fuller, and a member of his band, The Fuller Four. Little attempt was made to make this SXSW panel more than a dry-as-dust version of Unsolved Mysteries (which actually did a segment on the Fuller murder). Fuller was mysteriously found lying in the front seat of his mother's car, his body covered in gasoline.

"I'd like to think the police did it."

"The mob did it."

"Elvis did it."

"Maybe you did it," Fuller half-jokingly pointed to a member of the Fuller Four in the audience, drummer Dalton Powell.

Panelist Marshall Crenshaw (who recorded two Fuller songs) said little about his hero except to tell Randy Fuller he should rent the movie That Thing You Do, which parodies the Fuller Four's appearance in Ghost In The Invisible Bikini. Although it didn't solve a damn thing, the event at least brought attention to the recent Bobby Fuller Four retrospective on Del-Fi records, Never To Be Forgotten: The Mustang Years.

Cool Thing: The SXSW cartoon zine put out by Seattle weekly paper The Stranger. Instead of drawing Tippy the Turtle, draw Willie Nelson. Match Winona Ryder with her rock star boyfriends!

Swamp Diggity Dogg: You know when you have white people testifying, something funky's going on. Backed by Austin's horn-honkin' King Soul, R&B/ funk legend Swamp Dogg (aka Jerry Williams Jr.) got the crowd fired up with '70s classics like "Total Destruction To Your Mind," and others found on the new 25-song retrospective Fuck The Bomb, Stop The Drugs. No mincing words with the Dogg, who took several minutes away from his keyboards to expound on everything from education to thanking Vietnam vets.

Fashion Statement #2: Malepolish. More fellas had black, blue and green nails than the ladies.

Sleepers: Every year, the weekly Austin Chronicle lists their "picks" for the conference, and they also select a list of sleepers—the unexpected goodies. Here are a few sleepers of my own: Billy and the Forbidden Pigs mix Cajun accordion and Texas swing for a sound that's more San Antonio than San Diego (their home base). Although she won this year's Austin Music Award for "Best Folkie," Ana Egge's music is edgier than the award suggests. Her unwavering, resonant voice, coupled with bluegrassy guitar and a keen eye for lyrics, recalls a young Joni or Joan (Egge herself is only 21)… Playing the Sugar Free record label/Option magazine party, Sunset Valley stirred the crowd with a Farfisa-like organ and catchy indie space rock… At the Continental Club, Austin darlin' Damon Bramblett is Johnny Cash with adenoids and some seriously inventive guitar leads (he's sick of the Cash comparisons, but they're too obvious to ignore). He up-tempoed Townes Van Zandt's "Loretta" to a rock and roll swing, and crooned his own simmering rocker "Waiting For The Mail" and the rollicking "Nobody Goes to the Moon Anymore"—a song also recorded by Sarah Hickman… Japanese trio and Grand Royal label cats Buffalo Daughter made Waterloo records one groovy place to flip through vinyl. Sugar, Yumiko and Moog on angry guitars and orchestral-like electronics play the kind of organic-meets-synthetic funk of Cibo Matto and Luscious Jackson. Their new album, New Rock, is a crunchy mix of Beach Boy swirls, hip-hop breaks and acid-house beats. Not exactly new, but tasty stuff nonetheless.

Fashion Statement #3: The Emo Phillips look. The anti-fashion champ was a dude in a bowl cut and bright orange sport coat, seen dancing to his own inner drummer at the Sugar Free party and Jon Langford's set of sea-shanty punk.

Japan Nite: A tuba-playing pop band with a screeching lead singer in a red business suit (O.N.T.J. from Tokyo). Punk-funk rockers holding up signs for each song, like "Angly Teenager" (Balbora from Osaka). My boyfriend putting his arm around someone he thought was me. "Blue jeans, black jacket… I wasn't really looking." Poor guy turned bright red. Talk about your foreign affair.

Philadelphia Invasion: It's kinda surprising that the Rolling Hayseeds haven't played SXSW before—their Marshall Tuckered rock is perfect for Austin's hallowed halls. Especially Jerry Jeff Walker's Hang Em High Saloon, where the Hayseeds sounded better than ever—former Philadelphian Cowboy Keith was doing their sound. When Kevin Karg sang "18 Wheels on the Highway," you had no reason to believe he doesn't man a rig. Mark Tucker's slide and Dorothea Halg's hearty vocals were as potent as any Lone Star regular's. The Hayseeds got a few folks two-stepping, but the crowd wasn't as packed for this early show as it should have been. An hour later, around the corner at the Copper Tank, Marah played their slop-rock to a full house (just after Sherry Rich played with members of Wilco), riffing and raging à la Uncle Tupelo. The Friggs and The Delta 72 also drew big crowds—in fact they lined up down the block for the latter. And DJ Josh Wink rounded out the extremely diverse selection of Philly sounds with his fluid, thick-grooved creations. Last year in Austin, Wink played an electronica showcase at a little club. This year, the cavernous cement-floored Austin Music Hall hosted Wink with a substantial horde of the baggy-pantsed dancing to Wink's spins. Up front, on the floor, Wink was positioned inside a cage of sorts as kids leaned over to watch him spin, scratch, dig through his bag of records or ask him what record he was sampling, to which he kindly obliged—this is Texas after all.

Austin Stars: They call him the "abdominal snowman," or at least that's what they dubbed the extra-large Don Walser at the Continental Club last Friday night. More often he's referred to as "The Pavarotti of the Plains" for his wicked cowboy yodeling and pretty pedal steel. Walser and his Pure Texas Band are an Austin staple and won this year's Austin Music Award for "Best Country" artist. His encore that night, "Cattle Call," was a howl. Literally. At Ruta Maya coffeehouse, Sara Hickman seemed the peppy kindergarten teacher—rousing the crowd and asking them to hold her guitars—as she did tunes from the Adrian Belew-produced Two Kinds of Laughter (her first album of new stuff in four years). Hickman is an inventive variation on the WXPN-smooth singer/songwriter ilk, combining unusual harmonies with witty, often melancholy lyrics.

No Depression, Lotsa Shiner Boch Beer: It was practically a barn dance at the Broken Spoke when Checkered Past label's Tommy Womack whipped out his roadhouse-blues guitar. It was an afternoon party for No Depression, the magazine that prides itself on covering the Americana/Y'all-ternative scene (the majority of what SXSW offers). Hanging around to watch were The Bad Livers' Mark Rubin, Jim White and Philadelphia ex-pat Lonesome Bob. Chicago indie Bloodshot Records is one label No Depression adores, and their party at the Yard Dog gallery featured a great set by Moonshine Willy—singer-songwriter Kim Docterm leads this punkabilly, insurgent-country five piece.

The Star: Sean Lennon. Sure, most kids look like their parents, but it's kind of spooky when your pop was John Lennon and you look exactly like him. Okay, except for the bright yellow hair. Sean Lennon was honored, rather, promoted and gawked at, during a barbecue party for his new album, Into the Sun (Grand Royal). A kooky video featured Lennon being interviewed by a cab driver, answering questions about influences (The Beatles, duh, and of course like every other band these days, Brian Wilson) and then going off to get kicked out of a hotel for playing their piano. On the album, due out in May, Lennon sounds more like Mom than Dad—which isn't a bad thing (he's like a poppier Elliot Smith). There's the nasal voice, the minor chords and lots of acoustic guitar. Mix that with a bit of fuzz, jazz and backing band Cibo Matto, and it's an impressive debut for this 22-year-old, who has a whole lot to live up to.

The Sighting: Janeane Garofalo at Liberty Lunch for Imperial Teen. At Maggie Mae's for a Mary Lou Lord showcase. Walking to a movie theater. "Janeane Garofalo came on to me," said one geeky guy from a Cleveland newspaper. Dream on, fella.